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The interest of the first of those three great orders, it appears

from what has been just now said, is strictly and inseparably

connected with the general interest of the society. Whatever

either promotes or obstructs the one, necessarily promotes or

obstructs the other. When the public deliberates concerning any

regulation of commerce or police, the proprietors of land never

can mislead it, with a view to promote the interest of their own

particular order; at least, if they have any tolerable knowledge

of that interest. They are, indeed, too often defective in this

tolerable knowledge. They are the only one of the three orders

whose revenue costs them neither labour nor care, but comes to

them, as it were, of its own accord, and independent of any plan

or project of their own.